In an
earlier article (Jan-Feb 2006
CI ,p.8), the author asked Does Nanotechnology
Have a Sporting Chance? and reviewed briefly the hype
surrounding the field. In this article, Smith illustrates
how lessons from Mother Nature are resulting in the design
of new nanotechnology applications. These applications, which
relate to our everyday life, provide excellent examples that
children and adults can relate to, and should be used to promote
good science.

Over
the last hundred years Nobel Prizes have been awarded in medicine,
chemistry, and physics for work that would nowadays be described
as nanotechnology. Nanotechnology is certainly not new; Mother
Nature has been the best exponent since creation!

For
those not familiar with the nanoscale,it is about as small
as you can get, and down at that molecular or atomic level
it has been found that properties of things can change.To
help understand how small the nanoscale is, it would take
80 000 nanoparticles in a row to be just the diameter of a
human hair, and if a gull landed on the deck of an aircraft
carrier the ship would sink in the water by only one nanometre
(a millionth of a millimetre).